We haven’t made much progress in the past few weeks. We’ve had a friend in town from Chicago and then my parents were in town for 2 weeks (yay!). So we got to relax and just hang out with friends and family. In addition we’re no longer running the gallery on weekends, so we should have tons of free time to work on and around the house.

With the weather getting so nice we seem to have spent more time in the garden than on the interior. Even though there’s not much of a garden there still seems to be plenty of up keeping work. Our lawn consists of weeds more than grass. I think the most grass we can claim to have is the monkey grass! But the weeds need to be mown nonetheless. In addition to the lawnmower I really think we need to get one of those electrical trimmers to get into the edges.

In the meanwhile we tried to order plants from the Spring Hill Nursery catalog. They offered us 50% off, so we would give them a try. The first thing that arrived was a white rose called “JFK”. We planted it next to the shed. The stem was already quite large, but the little bit of growth it had quickly died after we put it in the ground…maybe due to shock? Hopefully it will start to grow before long. Then the next shipment brought the remaining items, including a couple of ornamental grasses (which Patrick is a big fan of), some lavender and some other plants with which we want to attempt to hide the monster of an A/C unit.

We created a flower bed next to the back steps by recycling the bricks we have dug up from around the yard. The sorry little plants in the back are supposed to be the lavender from Spring Hill. Sadly they look more dead now than they did when they arrived in the box (Patrick’s already given up hope). Hopefully they too will recover, but it definitely isn’t making me want to reorder from a catalog! The other plant closer is one we’ve had in a pot in the loft for a couple of years. We thought we’d try to plant it outside and let it experience the wild, fresh air.

Patrick is temporarily putting one of his ornamental grasses in the pot we took the other plant out of. Notice our cute tiny herb garden in the back on the stairs.

And lastly we were able to pick up the patio furniture my parents left us behind (which has been stored at Patrick’s mom’s). Patrick’s sister was nice enough to assist us in transporting them over here in her truck. Last night we sat outside for a little while for the first time and just took in our new exterior surrounding. It also made us think about the endless list of things we still have to work on. Hopefully that extra time that we should now have on weekends will really come in handy.

Oh, and PS…we went to Lowe’s after work today and bought a number of plants. So hopefully we’ll get to have some fun playing in the dirt tomorrow. And unlike the catalog plants, these don’t look all pathetic and ready to die!

PSS…my mom left behind several gardening books. It will definitely help us newbie gardeners to get more familiar with gardening. The Cottage Living subscription that Patrick’s mom gave us for Christmas also arrived yesterday and will give us lots of inspiration. I was already “ohhh-ing” and “awwww-ing” all over the place in jealousy over those gorgeous gardens.